CVE Alert: CVE-2025-11658 – ProjectsAndPrograms – School Management System

**Risk verdict** High risk: remote, unauthenticated unrestricted file upload with a publicly available exploit can lead to code execution.

**Why this matters** A successful upload may allow an attacker to deploy a web shell, access student or administrator data, or pivot within the network. With no user interaction required and a publicly disclosed exploit, the impact to availability and integrity of the system is substantial for education deployments relying on this portal.

**Most likely attack path** An external actor targets the web-facing upload endpoint, abusing low complexity and no authentication requirements to upload a malicious file. If the uploaded file is executable and stored in a web-accessible location, the server could be compromised with the attacker gaining code execution privileges, enabling data exfiltration or further access. The attack does not require user interaction and, once foothold is gained, attacker control may persist through persistent storage or web-accessible assets.

**Who is most exposed** Education institutions using publicly exposed school-management web portals are at risk, particularly those hosted in shared or low-segmentation environments without strict upload controls or VPN protection.

Detection ideas

• Monitor POST requests to the upload endpoint and unusual file types or large payloads.
• Look for new or unexpected PHP/ASP/JSP files created in or beneath the web root or upload directories.
• Scan for web shells or suspicious scripts with common names or patterns in uploads.
• Correlate spikes in traffic to the affected endpoint with failed or unusual upload attempts.
• Inspect access logs for anomalous referrers or repeated remote upload attempts to the same file parameter.

Mitigation and prioritisation

• Apply any available patch or upgrade to a fixed version; if not, implement strong input validation and disable unrestricted uploads.
• Enforce allowlists for upload content, store uploads outside the web root, and rename files to non-executable names.
• Implement a WAF rule to block untrusted file types and suspicious payload patterns; restrict script execution in upload locations.
• Require authentication for management interfaces; place critical endpoints behind MFA or VPN.
• Improve logging, alerting, and periodic review of uploads and admin activity; test rollback plans before changes.